I came to Canada as an international student and am now on a postgraduation work permit. How can I get permanent residency here.

Q. I am a recent master’s graduate with some work experience. I am currently unemployed but I came as an international student and am now on a postgraduation work permit. I am interested in gaining permanent residency here in Canada eventually leading to my Canadian citizenship. I hear of different ways to apply, some that I qualify for and others that I don’t.

A. A few years ago, the government created the Canadian Experience Class specifically to target international students who complete their studies then stay on to work in Canada. Graduates of Canadian post-secondary institutions who then accumulate at least one year of full-time work experience at a particular skill level, or in designated occupations, are then deemed eligible to apply for permanent resident status.

Full-time work experience means working at least 37.5 paid hours per week. The year of work doesn’t have to be consecutive. You could accumulate a year’s worth of full-time work in blocks over the space of two years and still be eligible to apply for permanent residence.

But again, it can’t be just any work; it has to be at a skill level or occupation set out on the list in the National Occupational Classification. So in your case, you need to check if you did a year’s worth of full-time work and if it was in the appropriate skill level or occupation. The government wants people who have worked in Skill Type 0 (managerial occupations) or Skill Level A (professional occupations) or Skill Level B (technical occupations and skilled trades). You can find the detailed criteria online at: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/cec/graduates.asp

Q. My wife and I are legal guardians of a 16-year-old boy who is a Ukrainian citizen. He is my third cousin — his great grandmother and my mother were sisters.

His parents won a U.S. Permanent Resident card in a lottery in Ukraine in 2008. They emigrated and settled in Detroit because his father knew a lot of people from his village who had emigrated to Detroit several years before. The parents are facing the usual hardships of most immigrants. However, notwithstanding the financial meltdown in 2008, they both hold full-time jobs and together work a second job in the evening. But under these circumstances, it was impossible to keep their son with them and they were going to send him back to Ukraine. There is family there but they all have their own lives. Their living quarters are small and it would be very difficult to accommodate this boy.

Consequently, my wife and I decided to take him in and we became his legal guardians. We have been responsible for all his expenses (for example, medical and dental) above and beyond the usual room and board. We have never asked for any compensation from his parents. In September 2008, he started Grade 8 here in Toronto. He has learned English and has transitioned to a Western style of life. He has friends here, he knows more about Toronto than Detroit and he has essentially put down roots.

He is here in Canada on a Student Visa and visits his parents when students get holidays — Christmas, Easter, March break and summer. So he has not “relinquished his U.S. residency.”

We are now at a crossroads. He does not want to go back to Ukraine. He prefers Canada over the United States. He says people look happier in Toronto than they do in Detroit! He has to choose a country in which to live and in which to pursue further studies beyond Grade 12.

His parents are allowing him to make his own choice because they plan on returning to Ukraine to retire. He will be left behind, but by that time he will be an adult. Can he backdate the years he has been here with us in order to expedite his citizenship? If he became a Canadian citizen, would he have to relinquish his U.S. Permanent Resident card? And how would he become a Canadian citizen?

A: First, this young man is a Ukrainian national in Canada on a student visa so he cannot simply apply for citizenship. He must first obtain permanent resident status in Canada. And it would seem the only logical route for him to proceed would be to apply on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, given all of the circumstances that you have described of his settlement in Canada, the deep roots he has established in the community, his family relationship with you and the stated intention of his parents to return to Ukraine to retire.

If he is successful in obtaining permanent resident status, only then would he be able to apply for citizenship, and then only after living in Canada as a permanent resident for three years. This also answers your other query: Were he to put down roots in Canada as a permanent resident, then he would be forfeiting his green card in the U.S. since you can’t be a permanent resident of two places. This case is likely to be complicated, so you should almost certainly seek professional assistance.

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